In a concerning sign for water managers, Colorado’s snowpack is shrinking at a time of year when it usually grows steadily. Through late November, the statewide snowpack is tracking well below the historic average and just barely above the all-time minimum. Late fall and early winter snow tends to freeze into a solid base layer that melts slowly in the spring to sustain spring runoff. Below-average snowpack this time of year could foreshadow a second subsequent below-average runoff season, with little relief for the state’s depleted rivers and reservoirs…

The SNOTEL site at Vail Mountain, (10,300 feet) for example, has dwindled to just 1 inch of snow on the ground, with Copper Mountain (10,500) at 3 inches, and Grizzly Peak, (11,100 feet) near Arapahoe Basin, at just 5 inches…

For now, the overall outlook from the National Weather Service remains dry for the next seven days, but the models are hinting that the pattern could start to change in early December, with short wave bits of energy starting to break down the western high pressure ridge, potentially cracking open the storm door.